The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [413]
Legend had it that the gate most favoured on these occasions was the Thakur Gate, because of its proximity to the city temple. But until now no one, not even the priests, had ever claimed to see a spirit pass. Tonight, however, all those who had the good fortune to be near the Mori Gate were to declare that they had actually seen this happen: that the Rana himself, clad all in gold and mounted on a coal-black horse whose hooves made no sound, had swept past them as silently and swiftly as a sudden gust of wind, and vanished into thin air.
The gold, of course, was pure invention. But then it must be remembered that the spectators were simple folk and saw only what they expected to see. To them, a Rana would naturally be splendidly dressed. It is also possible that a combination of torch-light and the glow from those small cooking fires, falling on Ash's light-brown clothing (and aided by the haze of smoke), could have lent it a fleeting illusion of splendour. But for the rest, the clatter of Dagobaz's hooves had been drowned by the mourning of the gongs, and in order to avoid any risk of being stopped, Ash had taken him through the gateway at full gallop, where once beyond the range of the firelight and the flares, horse and rider had instantly been lost to view.
All unaware that he had destroyed one legend and created another that would be told and re-told for as long as superstition survived or men believed in ghosts, Ash rode away from the city along the dust-laden north road.
For a moment or two the transition from light to darkness made the countryside seem an inky waste and the grey ribbon of the road barely visible for more than a few yards ahead. Then his eyes adjusted to the change and he realized that the dawn was already at hand and the near hills sharply distinct against a brightening sky in which the stars no longer blazed and glittered, but showed as pale as the petals of faded jasmine blossoms.
The little wind that is the forerunner of morning had begun to breathe across the fields, rustling the standing crops and lending an illusion of coolness to the air, and already it was possible to make out objects twenty and thirty yards distant: a boulder, a shrub, a kikar tree or a feathery tuft of pampas grass; and further off still, a herd of black-buck trotting sedately away across the plain after a night spent foraging in the cultivated land, and the lean grey shape of a wolf loping steadily towards the hills.
Dagobaz had always revelled in early morning gallops over open country, and of late he had spent too many hours shut up in a shed in the charcoal-seller's yard. In addition to which that frightening and inexplicable booming had set every nerve in his body on edge, and even out here he could still hear it, fainter now, for the breeze was carrying it away down the valley, but still all too audible. He redoubled his efforts to escape it, and as they were now beyond the crop-lands, swerved from the road and took to the rougher ground, his rider making no effort to restrain him.
The wolf glanced over its shoulder and broke into a canter, imagining itself pursued, while further to the left the black-buck herd took fright and went bounding away across the shadowy plain. And for a brief space Ash forgot what lay ahead and was suddenly caught by the familiar intoxication of speed and of being at one with his horse. A tremendous, all-possessing excitement that seemed to hold him rigid, his hands motionless on the reins, his thighs clamped to the saddle. What did it matter if he died today or tomorrow? He had lived. He was alive now – joyously and intensely alive – if this was the last morning he would ever see, what better way to spend it?
The black stallion's body and his own were one, and his blood sang in rhythm with the pounding hooves as the air fled past them and the ground flowed away beneath them as smoothly as a river. The sound of the gongs dwindled away until it was no louder than the sough of wind under a door, and ahead a water